I am most fortunate that most of Carolaine Acres' puppy owners, tend to keep me well informed on the progress of their puppies. I thought I would use this page to talk a little about things that seem to be common threads amongst all the puppies.
The first and largest question I get from puppy owners is caring for their ears. Generally we all know that constant brushing is the only sure cure for matted ears. I find that brushing their ears at least once a week does prevent matting. For those of you who do find yourselves in the position of having to deal with heavily matted ears, you do have two choices. One is to take your time and just start working at brushing out the matts. This doesn't have to be done at one setting.....hard on you and definitely hard on your dog. Taking a half hour a day and keeping at it until the matts come out is one way of getting rid of matts. The other solution is to shave your dog's ears down and let them start growing again and keep brushing them as they grow out. It's all a matter of personal choice.
Ear hair is another concern. Some of you were blessed with a puppy who has excessive ear hair. Even if you don't possess a hairy eared dog, I can't stress enough the importance of cleaning a poodle's ears once a week. Some of my dogs don't have excessive ear hair, so once a week, I just pull some of the loose hairs out and use a moist dog ear cleaner and thoroughly wipe out the ears. I always make sure that the ears are dry when I am done as moisture can create infections. For the hairier variety, I make sure I tweeze out some of the excess hair each week during the ear cleaning process. I also tweeze more hair out if the dog is a big wax producer.
You do want to avoid ear infections as once they start, it is very very difficult to get rid of an infection and they tend to re-occur over and over again. If you do get a dog with persistent ear infections, please look at their diet as a probable culprit. Dog foods with lots of grains are often the cause of ear infections and are also looked at as a possible cause for bloat. Bloat can kill your dog in 6 short hours if not rushed to emergency at the onset. Bloat is a common problem in poodles with deep chests and is easily taken care of by feeding grain free kibble. To the best of my knowledge and research, our adult poodles do not have any history of bloat in their backgrounds......but you can never be too safe. Grain based diets also tend to be an important problem with skin rashes and dry skin coats in general. You definitely want to invest in a kibble with lots of protein, omega fatty acids, fruits and vegetables and preferably no grains. A raw food diet can be most beneficial to your dog........IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. TO RANDOMLY FEED YOUR DOG RAW FOOD WITHOUT FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND PROPER SUPPLEMENTS CAN BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN FEEDING A POOR QUALITY KIBBLE. Raw food diets need to be researched properly and thoroughly.
When bathing your dog, be sure you don't get any water in his/her ears. It is always okay to wipe out the ears with a damp cloth when bathing, but don't get water or soap in his/her ears. You may end up with serious ear infections if you do. I also spend a great deal of time, drying my dogs' ears when they have been swimming to make sure there is no excessive water in their ears.
You will always know when your dog's ears are infected....they smell when they are infected.....usually long before you notice your dog shaking their heads and scratching.
The other situation I hear about over and over again, are poodles who can open doors and let themselves in and out. If you have a poodle, I would strongly recommend that you do not have lever type handles on your doors. Poodles figure out very very quickly that by pulling down on a lever, they can unlatch a door and open it by pushing on the door or wiggling their noses into a small opening and pulling the door open. Some screen doors will have a bar across that you simply push and the door will open. Poodles love these doors best of all.....one quick jump and off they go. The rounded door handle is safest with a poodle.
